Thompson v. Piercy

── Thompson v. Piercy ── Court: Appellate Court of Illinois Date: April 14, 2026 Category: General 2026 IL App (1st) 251160-U SECOND DIVISION April 14, 2026 No. 1-25-1160 NOTICE: This order was filed under Supreme Court Rule 23 and is not precedent except in the limited circumstances allowed under Rule 23(e)(1). IN THE APPELLATE COURT OF ILLINOIS FIRST JUDICIAL DISTRICT GREGORY T. THOMPSON, as Beneficiary of the Betty Jane ) Appeal from the Coffman Lill Revocable Trust Dated August 4, 2003, ) Circuit Court of ) Cook County Plaintiff-Appellant, ) ) v. ) No. 2025 L 000151 ) KENNETH A. PIERCEY and PIERCEY & ASSOCIATES, LTD., ) Honorable ) Jerry A. Esrig, Defendants-Appellees. ) Judge, Presiding. ______________________________________________________________________________ JUSTICE D.B. WALKER delivered the judgment of the court. Presiding Justice Van Tine and Justice Ellis concurred with the judgment. ORDER ¶1 Held: We affirm the trial court’s dismissal of plaintiff’s legal malpractice complaint where plaintiff did not exercise diligence in serving defendants pursuant to Rule 103(b). ¶2 Plaintiff Gregory T. Thompson appeals the trial court’s judgment dismissing his legal malpractice complaint against defendants, Kenneth A. Piercey and Piercey & Associates, Ltd. In dismissing the case with prejudice, the trial court found that plaintiff failed to exercise reasonable diligence to obtain service on defendants. On appeal, plaintiff contends that the trial court abused No. 1-25-1160 its discretion in dismissing his complaint where (1) defendants were not prejudiced by the delay in service; (2) considering the totality of the circumstances, plaintiff acted with reasonable diligence; and (3) plaintiff had a statutory right to effectively extend the statute of limitations by voluntarily dismissing his case, and he served defendants shortly after refiling his case. For the following reasons, we affirm. ¶3 I. BACKGROUND ¶4 Defendants provided plaintiff’s mother, Betty Jane Coffman (a/k/a Betty Jane Coffman Lill) with estate planning services for more than 20 years. During that time, defendants prepared the Betty Jane Coffman Revocable Trust Agreement (trust agreement), which Ms. Coffman executed on August 14, 2003. The trust gifted specific real property to each of Ms. Coffman’s three children: plaintiff, Donna Jean Perkowski, and Homer Coffman. ¶5 In 2013, defendants drafted the operating agreement for Tyre Properties, LLC, of which Ms. Coffman was the sole member. She executed this agreement on March 18, 2013. The operating agreement provided for the distribution of the same real properties addressed by the trust. ¶6 On May 1, 2013, Ms. Coffman executed an amendment of the trust agreement prepared by defendants. Ms. Coffman subsequently executed three more amendments, each drafted by defendants. The final amendment, executed by Ms. Coffman on October 3, 2019, changed the disposition of one of her properties from Donna to plaintiff. This disposition differed from the distribution set forth in Tyre’s operating agreement. ¶7 Ms. Coffman died on September 4, 2021. On April 22, 2022, Donna filed a complaint in chancery court against plaintiff and Homer seeking a declaration as to whether the trust agreement or the operating agreement controlled the distributio